Alternative News Aggregator to Drudge.

Whatfinger, The Liberty Daily ^ | 11/1/2017 | X1STCAV

[x1stcav]

I gave up on Drudge some time ago (after almost twenty years as my go-to news feed) and have been looking for alternatives. Two that seem to be pretty good are Whatfinger and The Liberty Daily. The first is a pretty conventional newsfeed but Liberty Daily is Drudge for normals.

[mom of young patriots]

Just went to liberty daily and was assaulted by an entire page of big, gross ad photos. How do you get rid of those? A red ribbon at the top scolded me for having an ad blocker turned on. I can only imagine what the page would look like if I turned it off.

I used to go to that website and I don’t remember those being so prevalent.

[gubamyster]

Yes, there are a lot of ads, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. I don’t know how to get rid of them. I just live with it. I choose to put up with it rather than give Drudge any more hits.

[angelrod]

Here’s my daily routine:

Breitbart.com
Libertydaily.com
Rantingly.com
Reddit the Donald

And I saved the best for last:
Free republic.com

I must look at all these sites over 20 times a day each. I haven’t read a book since the election, there’s so much going on with President Trump, I have no time. What a timeline to be alive in! And I haven’t read drudgereport since the bull crap he pulled in Charlottesville.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“Liberty Daily is excellent.”

I just checked it out. GACK!! The adverts! They are all over the page, at top, in the middle, in the bottom, at the left sidebar. I couldn’t find content through all the absolutely disgusting pictures on the adverts.

The content links may be great, but I find that totally unusable. I guess that’s why I like FR and Drudge.

[SkyDancer]

Yeah, that too. It was worth a check out though.

[4Liberty]

Bump

[x1stcav]

Reddit the Donald is a good find.

Thanks.

[publana]

Bookmark

[TomGuy]

re: Ads

I wonder at some of those ads. They indicate that they have health or similar info. You click. Up pops a video.

‘Before I tell you about this amazing product, I am going to tell you this long story...’

Do they really think someone wants to listen to a long video? Some of them go on for 30 minutes or more. You can’t stream ahead. You can’t adjust the volume. You can’t even exit the video without exiting the page. And that is going to make me want to buy their product?

[Behind Liberal Lines]

FR has been what I consider my aggregator for nearly 20 years.

[snarkpup]

Liberty Daily is shot with stupid ads

I don't see any ads.

NoScript is blocking unnecessary, annoying and possibly malicious scripts from five domains and uBlock Origin blocks some additional garbage from two more. uBlock Origin (which is trivial to use) should block most of the annoying stuff by itself even if NoScript (which is less trivial to use) is not installed.

These are (IMO) the main security extensions for Firefox and the browsers I have replaced it with (Pale Moon and Waterfox). uBlock Origin seems to be available almost everwhere, including Chrome.

[mom of young patriots]

Thanks. I’ve got UBlock Origin. I will try NoScript

[snarkpup]

Thanks. I’ve got UBlock Origin. I will try NoScript

uBlock Origin is a blacklist-based content blocker that (normally) blocks only domains that are known sources of garbage, have no redeeming qualities and should always be blocked. You normally don't have to do anything once it is installed.

NoScript is a whitelist-based content blocker that kneecaps the underlying technology (active content like JavaScript, Flash, etc.) that is used by annoying and malicious content. This frequently breaks websites that are legitimate but (IMO) poorly implemented. It also breaks the few websites with a legitimate need for active content (e.g., interactive maps with pan & zoom). This is why you will have to tell NoScript to whitelist some trusted sites when they don't work. E.g., when I go to my bank's website, I have to whitelist the domain of the bank and the domain that handles their logon stuff; but I leave five more un-whitelisted that are crap like web trackers and ads. Occasionally a website (like an e-commerce site's checkout process) needs stuff from so many domains that it is easier to just temporarily "allow all globally."

Members of the public who are not power users typically make do with just uBlock Origin (or one of the other ad blockers).

[TomGuy]

I have Ad Blocker, but it has become unreliable. I think they sold their souls and are being paid to allow many ads.

I tried Ublock, but had some problems with it, IIRC.

I will check out NoScript.

With all the screwy stuff Mozilla is doing — rapid releases and revamping their extensions programming — it is difficult to keep up.

[snarkpup]

With all the screwy stuff Mozilla is doing — rapid releases and revamping their extensions programming — it is difficult to keep up.

There are several extensions with "uBlock" in the name. "uBlock Origin" is the one you want.

Pale Moon and Waterfox are similar enough to Firefox that there is no learning curve—and with them you avoid the problems associated with Mozilla's management.

[itsahoot]

Liberty Daily is shot with stupid ads

Yep and add blockers don't stop them. I guess they are integrated into the web page. It has become as bad as the Blaze before they lost most of their advertisers.

[SamAdams76]

I have no problems with Drudge. He's pretty fair and balanced and that's all I require. I don't need him to be slanted to the right (so long as he's not slanted to the left). Other news aggregators mentioned here are good as well, Drudge need not be the only one. I've been going to the Breitbart page a lot more but they really need a professional web designer as their layout is a hot mess. Content there is good though and is constantly getting updated.

I see a lot of people on the thread complaining about the ads on various sites. Well guess what folks, content ain't free. I thought we were all capitalists here and not a bunch of socialists. You either pay for a subscription or you put up with the ads. The content providers needs to get paid one way or another. So choose your poison.

That also ties into this here Free Republic, which is always in constant fund-raising mode - probably due to the same folks who are always complaining about the ads on the other sites not kicking in a few bucks from time to time.

Now this website doesn't have the ad revenue option to cover costs so they can only get it through donations. Even a $5 monthly spend by each regular user would easily cover the costs.

So there you go, I'll get off my soapbox.

[x1stcav]

Excellent points all...particularly pointing out that content ain’t free.

We’ve never had so much to chose from on the net that appeals to our side.

Great times.

[snarkpup]

I guess they are integrated into the web page.

A while back in the comments section at The Register someone mentioned that there are some websites that defeat blacklist-based ad blockers by channeling their ads from the real sources into their main domain. The solution is to block active content from the main domain by not whitelisting it in a whitelist-based blocker (or by strong security settings in the bowels of the browser). Except when I'm at a handful of trusted sites, I have NoScript in full-block mode and therefore have probably been to such sites but not noticed the problem.

[snarkpup]

You either pay for a subscription or you put up with the ads.

This applies only to the old-style ads that were just GIF image banners. "Modern" ads that use active content (JavaScript, Flash, etc.) are a common vector for malware and it is important to block these. Blockers that focus on active content (like NoScript or strong browser security settings) would not block ads that are simple images.